Philip Sheridan was a tremendous hero after the Civil War, second only to Grant and Sherman. His command of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry, his successful Valley Campaign and his center stage roles at Chattanooga and along the Mississippi were the stuff of legend. While modern historians dispute some of the praise heaped upon Sheridan, he was a valued subordinate to Ulysses S. Grant.
And, he was a native son of Albany. At least that was universally accepted during his life. Recent evidence suggests that he may have been born during his parents immigration to the United States from Ireland. In any event, Albany was happy to celebrate Sheridan as a Republic-saving offspring of the city. The wonderful statue depicts Sheridan as strong, smiling, and aggressive. With the Capitol in the background, his is among the most photographed of Albany’s many statues.
Sculpted by two of America’s most renowned sculptors, John Quincy Adams Ward and Daniel Chester French, the monument exudes an aggressive energy. John Quincy Adams Ward had originally designed the statue for Washington, D.C. His most famous work today is Washington’s statue on Wall Street. Unfortunately, Ward died before his sheridan statue could be produced. When Albany began to consider a statue of Sheridan, Daniel Chester French, designer of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C., suggested that Ward’s model be used. The statue was completed in 1916.
The mounted Sheridan was bound to recall his most famous battle. When his troops appeared to be retreating at a fight in the Shenandoah Valley, Sheridan rode his horse Rienze twenty miles to rally his troops to victory at Cedar Creek in Virginia. While the statue depicts Sheridan after the war in the dress uniform of the General of the Army, Ward and French clearly wanted the viewer to reference the general’s 1864 heroism as well as to be reminded of Sheridan’s cavalry blocking Lee’s attempt to escape at Appomattox.
After the Civil War, Sheridan became a popular hero among African Americans. He went to Texas with the mission of suppressing the Ku Klux Klan. Sheridan successfully destroyed the terrorist group’s power in the state and established the right to vote of Black Texas men. The general was engaged in the protection of Texas African Americans but he did not like Texas at all, once saying “If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent out Texas and live in Hell.”
Less well known today was Sheridan’s role during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. On October 11, 1871 the mayor of Chicago announced that in a city devastated by the conflagration he was placing Sheridan in charge of the security of the city.
The statue is in front of the State Capitol and across the street from the Albany City Hall, shown below. There have been some calls to reconsider the place of the statue in Albany in recent years because of Sheridan’s actions against the Native Americans on the Plains in the 1870s. Sheridan’s subordinates carried out attacks on Native villages in the Dakotas and elsewhere. Non-combatants were killed in these attacks and long-term combat led to deaths from malnourishment among non-combatants including children. Sheridan’s strategy included the killing of Bison to deny Native Americans a major food source.
The work on the New York State Capitol Building was begun during Reconstruction in 1867 and continued for thirty-two years. The building is said to be in the style of a French chateaux. Ulysses S. Grant lay in State in the building after his death and there are many relics of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the beautify building.
The area near the Capitol is among the most historically interpreted neighborhoods in New York State. Tours are given of the Capitol three times a day and many tours take people to sites and museums nearby. I will post more Places to Visit near the Capitol in coming months.
While Albany is often the scene of New York’s most despicable political thefts and two of the last four governors were forced to resign because of their misdeeds, I enjoy touring the many historic sites in the city and its environs and I will share what I know about them in other articles in 2023.
